A decade on, Alice Springs’ Indigenous festival Parrtjima is bringing a community together through art and storytelling.
Story Terri Cowley Photos Peter Pap
At the centre of a 2km-long red dirt paddock that nips at the bottom of the startling West MacDonnell Ranges just out of Alice Springs, 3 horses with riders stand – one huge, one that’s just about pony-sized, and another that’s also huge but is frozen in a bucking stance, its rider somewhat askew, ready to fall off the back haunches. Each horse and rider glows from within. A bundle of fairy lights twinkle like the purple, unpolluted skies they sit under. Of this place and yet not. Something a bit magical.
This art installation called The Language of the Stockmen was first displayed as part of the Indigenous light show Parrtjima in 2019. In 2025, it was back for Parrtjima’s 10th year, but that – as the show’s curator and well-known arts executive Rhoda Roberts explains – was not that simple. “We didn’t know where they were,” Rhoda says. “When we managed to track them down in some guy’s paddock, he was like, ‘I’m glad you are coming to get this. I was going to chuck it out!’”
More than 20,000 people – a seamless mix of curious visitors and comfortable locals – attended a 10-day program from April 4–15, which also had panel talks, workshops and a comedy night. The colourful, safe ‘gathering ground’ included a live music stage featuring Troy Cassar-Daley and the Darwin Symphony Orchestra and others. Indigenous markets sold Aboriginal art, fashion, jewellery, bush medicine and beauty products, and multicultural food trucks made a killing. It all culminated in the MacDonnell Ranges Light Show, during which breathtaking projections were plastered against the red quartzite peaks telling the story of the local Arrernte people to enthusiastic crowds in grandstands.
This story excerpt is from issue #161
Outback Magazine: June/July 2025
